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Thursday, August 1, 2013

Starlooks - July 2013

IBIZAIt's that wonderful time of the beauty sub month! The faaaaabulous makeup sub....STARLOOKS STARBOX! This month's box is a rich, luxurious-looking exotic mix, reminiscent of the beautiful, enticing island on the Mediterranean Sea, Ibiza.

I absolute LOVE the black and gold box!

As most of you know, The Charming Cheshire now provides Sneak Peek/Reveal spoiler posts for beauty subs, and if you missed July's Looks Book post, here is the link! -

So if you were crossing your fingers that the guesses on the products in the REVEAL post were going to be close to being right....THEY DEFINITELY WERE! My main guess was that there was going to be some sort of palette with nude, gold, coral, maroon and black eyeshadows in it and by golly....there is!

Here is the July 2013 Starbox:

It was a super tight fit in the box this month!

Here are all of the items unwrapped -

We have an eyeshadow palette, makeup brush, container with pigment, body butter cream and of course, the quartz crystal

To the products!.....

5 SHADE SHADOW PALETTE

in St. Tropez

"This gorgeous, 5 shade eye shadow palette is the perfect combination of matte and shimmer, bronze and gold-based eye shadows for summer. While you party in the sun and get a warm, smooth tan, you'll need these ideal eyeshadows to compliment your look - and it's a great for day or night! You can also use the lightest shade and the gold shade as a powder illuminator or highlighter for the face and body!" - from 2013 July Starbox Card

I'm going to jump right on in with the pretty stuff! Here we have the beautiful 5 shade eyeshadow palette in St. Tropez. It contains a shimmery fair nude, a yellow-gold shimmer, a light peachy-coral shimmer and a matte black.

I know these swatches look kind of off balance and uneven, but believe it or not, they were all spaces equally apart. These were also all done without a primer. The fair nude almost blends into my skin when it's lightly swatched, so when I ran a second swipe over, it deepened the color in the middle. You can BARELY make out the color along the edge where the product isn't as thick but you can see it's shimmer! It's a beautiful highlighter for my skin tone. The yellow-gold is very radiant and gorgeous. The peachy-coral is probably my favorite and it's nicely pigmented. The maroon has this amazing sultry shimmer that looks bright maroon in some lights or dark brown in others, it's stunning!....but the black.....::sigh::.....oh the poor poor black. I want to love it so, but I just can't. Here is what happened when I tried to swatch the black:

It is the strangest thing. The same thing actually happened to the Brow Bar dark brown shade I received in the May Starbox. After I swiped my finger across it, it....well...heavens...hard to describe. Hardened? I guess you could say? Notice the strange hard sheen across the top but along the edges it still looks soft. I know it wasn't because of anything on my fingertips, they were washed clean and completely dry. That dent was made when I tried to light dig my fingernail into it to try to break it up or loosen the powder but LOOK! The dent is hardened too! None of the other colors had any issue such as this. They were very soft and easy to swatch and work with. They only thing I'm able to do with the black is use a small angled brush along the edge to use as a setting powder for black eyeliner. If you'll notice in my swatch picture above you can see how thin and not very pigmented the black eyeshadow is. It's twice as wide as the others because I kept trying to swatch and even press the powder on but it would not go any darker than that.

I even tried swatching it over NYX's Jumbo Pencil in Milk:

It's just too thin. Swatching it over Milk just lightened it and made it appear more gray-toned.

I still absolutely adore the palette, even though I can't use the black as an over-all color, but the other shades are positively GORGEOUS! They also have 17 other 5 shade shadow palettes:

Amsterdam - purples, plums, dark mauves

Cabo - greens

Casa Blanca - neutral silver greys/browns

Copenhagen - cool nudes

Hong Kong - nude, lavender blues

Ibiza - white, silver, nudes

London - blue, mint-teals

Madrid - rose, purple, dull blue, sage, brown

Milan - nude, orange-browns

Morocco - warm nudes

Paris - brights, peach, yellow, blue, sage, coral

Rio - rich silver/blue, dull sepia, maroon, coral, dark grey

Rome - pastels

Shanghai - nude, cool dark neutrals

St. Maarten - warm pastels

Stockholm - light pastels

Tel Aviv - rosy mauve/pinks/purples

SCULPT AND BLUSH MAKEUP BRUSH (906)

"This brush has the perfect angle! Use it to apply any bronzer (like our bronzer from your June Starbox!) for a deep contour under the cheek bones, or use it to apply a pearly highlight on the cheek or brow bone. It can also be used as a blush brush. In fact, this brush is so soft, you can even use it to apply eye shadow base colors! Try it! - you'll love the application." - From 2013 July Starbox Card

I positively adore receiving makeup brushes in beauty subs! I can never receive enough! I'm always on the lookout for new fabulous brushes that I can't live without. This brush is super sleek, with a nice long handle, and it also has the name and product number of the brush printed on it as well which I love.

The bristles are made with natural hair (cruelty-free animal hair, taken by being "fresh" shaved), and they are SOFT. As you can see it has a slight angle in shape so it's great for contouring and highlighting, as well as soft enough to be an excellent blender for blush. To me, this is a better daytime application brush as it IS so super soft so it doesn't pack much product on. So when I contour with my bronzer, I have to apply a few layers to build up the color if I want more. For daytime, you don't want it to be too stark of a contrast, so a lighter, thinner contour will be perfect. Same with highlighting! As for eyeshadow, you'd have to work very lightly from the tip and it could brush on the shadow past your eye area if you have smaller eyes. However, I definitely think this is an excellent brush to add to one's stash!

SPECIAL JULY STARBOX ADDITION:

THE ULTIMATE BODY BRONZE SET

PIGMENT LUSTER

in Penny Wise

(Half-size)

SHIMMER-RIFICAL!

This is the most AH-mazing little pot of absolutely fantastic bronzed-gold shimmer EVER. Just....EVER. No, don't argue with me, just go with it. EVER.

It's so interesting at how bronzed it looks in the pot, but when I swatch it, it comes out more gold, but LOOK AT THAT! It goes on ridiculously pigmented. The single swipe was SO very tiny and look how fabulously it's showing up! Even blended (which by the way, it does excellently) it still shows up well, shiny, shimmery and pigmented. It blends softly and evenly or can be built up for bright silky metallic color! In my opinion, this shadow can be used as a highlighting shimmer over another color, as an all-over shade, as a bright metallic eyeliner, as an inner corner eye illuminator, or even as an under-eye shimmery pop of vibrancy. It's a special multi-tasking pigment you'll definitely want to have in your stash!

QUINCE RELAXING BODY BUTTER FOIL

with Chamomile & Lavender

Here is the second product that is part of the Body Bronze set featured on starlooks.com. It is a luxurious body butter from Quince Body Butters and it smells HEAVENLY. When I first saw the fragrance I cringed because I typically do NOT like the smell of lavender, but ohhhhh, ladies. I kid you not when I say this body butter not only feels amazing and gives your skin the deepest hydrating and moisturizing treatment leaving your skin feeling baby soft smooth, but it smells fantastic too! It's a very light, airy floral aroma with some scrumptious notes containing a yummy vanilla. It's essence is:

It applies a little on the thick side, but quickly blends in and immediately softens and smooths the skin and makes it supple and less ridged. I've already got my eye on a bunch of Quince's other body butters as they sound AMAZING:

Antioxidant - with Blueberry, Pomegranate and Almond

Energizing - with Green Tea & Pistachio

Nourishing - with Hemp & Acai

Repairing - with Coffee & Pumpkin

Replenishing - with Soy, Macadamia & Lemongrass

Soothing - with Aloe & Brazil Nut

On Starlook's website, starlooks.com, you can purchase a Body Bronze Set which includes a full-size Quince Body Butter in Relaxing with Camomile & Lavender as well as a full-size of Starlook's Pigment Luster in Penny Wise. Here is how Starlooks recommends use:

"To achieve an incredible body bronzing effect without purchasing expensive bronzing creams, all you have to do is combine a luscious body butter with a pigment eyeshadow - Amazing! And the best part? The depth of color is completely customizable! YOU get to decide whether you would like a light, medium, or dark tone to the skin, simply by combining a smaller or larger amount of the bronze pigment with the lotion!

Steps for Application:

1. Scoop the desired amount of Quince Body Butter into your hand.

2. Sprinkle the powder from your...pigment jar onto the dollop of Body Butter in your hand (sprinkle about a pea-size amount for light bronzing, a dime size for medium bronze, and half the container for darkest bronze).

3. Now, just rub your hands together to mix the cream with the pigment until you see an even dispersion of the now bronzed cream all over the surface of the hands! This bronzing method requires no pre-mixing in a bowl or container!

4. Time to apply - like you would with any lotion - evenly and smoothly! Provides a gorgeous, bronze tint and also intense moisture! You now have that perfect beach body glow! This combination lasts all day, and once dry, doesn't transfer onto fabrics (but be more careful around whites)." - from starlooks.com

The samples that I received were the half-size Penny Wise pigment, and a foil sample of the Body Butter which Starlooks says is good for one application for both legs, simply use half of the Body Butter for each leg. I really wanted to try it out, but if I only do my legs, I'm going to be quite a sight since I'm so fair! Also, they're not accounting for my ridiculously long 37" inseam so 1/2 the packet may not even make it on one whole leg for me! Alas...::giggles::

YEEEEEES, Starlooks! THIS is very very well done and an outstandingly high worth box. Even the Quince foil is an amazing sized foil and thickly packed. Thank you very much Starlooks for setting the bar high this month! At the moment Starlooks has a special for The Ultimate Body Bronze Set on their website for $24 if anyone is interested is snagging that shimmery, delicious smelling bronzey goodness!

FINALE

So I could not really create the bronzing butter, as I said, my legs are too long and it would be SUCH a contrast compared to my body. I also didn't want to waste it on that when the body butter and pigment are so fabulous on their own! So I decided to do TWO looks for this month....one being a daytime look and one a nighttime. One featuring Penny Wise and the other the eyeshadow palette....here they are!....

DAYTIME

Ft. Penny Wise Pigment Luster

I'm actually featuring a few Starlooks products! On the cheeks is their bronzing powder from the June Starbox and on my lips is their lipstick Flutter from their March Starbox (which I'm sorry to say, the lipstick is no longer available for purchase ::apologies!::). Excuse my very exhausted looking face, I did not realize how tired I looked until after I took the photos! I was running on four hours sleep that day, so it definitely makes sense, hehe.

So I wanted something bright, summer-into-fall looking with a bit of pizzazz. I used the pigment all over my lids and I lightly blended a bit of the peachy-coral shade from the St. Tropez palette above the crease to soften the edge. I positively ADORE the pigment. It is stunning! I used Urban Decay's Primer Potion as well as NYX's Jumbo Pencil in Milk as my primers. I also used Urban Decay's Scorch and Lucky for my eyeliner as I wanted them to blend into the color but still be seen.

NIGHTTIME

Ft. St. Tropez Palette

I went with something a little more dramatic but still not too heavy for my nighttime look. I wanted something a bit deeper but still with a hint of vibrancy and richness as well as something that could be suitable for a night out with the Hubby, out for drinks with the gals, dancing at the club or a fancy event.

I focused mainly on the maroon in the palette as I think it's divine. I blended the pale nude as my highlighter below my eyebrows and towards the center of my eyes. Then I patted on the maroon in a cat eye shape (no surprise there!), followed with lightly blending the peachy-coral above it to soften the edge (same as daytime look). Then for some pop of fun, I edged the outer bottom lashes with the yellow-gold for some hidden metallic ritz! As you can see, with the eyes closed, you can't see the gold at all, but helloooooo when open! I also lined my eyes with Starlook's Precision Eyeliner and winged it out, then patted some of the matte black eyeshadow from the St. Tropez palette on top to set it and soften the wing.

Well, that's it for this month's Starbox, I hope you enjoyed the review! Stay tuned in the next week or so as we should be seeing the August Looks Book in The Charming Cheshire REVEAL post for Starlooks!